It’s Never Been More Fun to Buy a Yeti Cooler

Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. We may earn a commission from these links. Here’s how we test products and why you should trust us.Florence Sullivan4 min readShop $325, amazon.com or yeti.comWelcome to the Esquire Endorsement. Heavily researched. Thoroughly vetted. These picks are the best way to spend your hard-earned cash.I could lie to you. I could say the cheapest ice chest is the best one for the money, or I could find a link to a direct-to-consumer brand that is trying desperately to disrupt the world of rotomolded coolers. Sometimes the cheapest thing is the best thing—I’m not denying that. I’ll gladly tell you to keep buying Chuck Taylors and Wrangler Cowboy Cut jeans. But sometimes in life, you need to put some money down. You need to invest. The problem, in these cases, is figuring out which thing is worth the price tag—not just a benefit of its status or years in first place like the college football dynasty du jour: The U, Saban’s Crimson Tide, Cignetti’s IU.Yeti is worth it. Like all those dynasties, it’s still fighting off the competition. A Tundra cooler is, was, and always will be worth the number of dollar bills you could stuff into its cavernous hull, but it’s only sold for a few hundred. This is a real-deal dynasty. Why? Because it works, sure. Because it looks better than the rest with the roped handles, classic logo, and bear-proof toggles. Because in a quest for newness, Yeti has started making seasonal color drops that have made the brand more fun than ever.But really, it comes down to status, vanity, which a magazine like this one is all about. When I’m at a tailgate and my brother wants to talk about his “Cheaper than Yeti coolers that are just as good as Yeti,” I say: “Yeah, but which one looks better to the people grabbing beers out of it?” He concedes, Yeti. Case closed.Shop $325, amazon.com or yeti.comFlorence SullivanIt Makes a Case for VanityNow like I said, this is a magazine—and I, a man—that will never talk down on vanity. Vanity frequently gets mistaken as one of the deadly sins—it’s not. Pride, the belief that you are superior because you are smarter, better looking, or more well put together, is the sin. Vanity can lead to pride, sure, but I’ll never look down on someone that wants to look good.And that’s what Yeti has on any other cooler brand. I have used the Pelicans, the RTICs, and all the other lesser names. They either look insane, like you’re cosplaying as a real workin’ man who doesn’t care about how his cooler looks, or they look like straight-up dupes of a Yeti. Those that can’t come up with anything to beat the best either try to look nonchalant or they try to copy the best.Now, I think Yeti is leaning into vanity. It still makes the OG colorways, the I own an offshore boat white and drunk at an SEC tailgate tan. But crucially, it’s doing seasonal colors, good ones. Pictured here is part of a fall drop especially targeted toward upland bird hunting with that dapper green and orange. It’s done a really killer marshy duck camo and consistently rolls out solid outdoors-inspired colorways. You might say, “This is all sissy and not what coolers are for,” and I’d say, “I went home to see a UGA football game last year and saw more Rescue Red (Dawg Red) Yeti coolers than I’ve ever seen of any color.” Yeti ain’t worried about what you think; it’s selling just fine.Shop $325, amazon.com or yeti.comFlorence SullivanAfter All This Time, the Performance Holds UpThe problem these days is that rotomolded coolers are a technology that’s been found out. Yeti was the first big name, still the biggest name, but it’s not all that difficult to make a good rotomolded cooler that holds ice for days. RTIC does it and looks interestingly similar to Yeti; same goes for Orca. Pelican does it, looks its own, and makes its coolers in the U.S.A. I can’t defend Yeti against that.But what I can say is that all the talk about “Oh, this cooler holds ice longer than this one,” is bullshit—useless at this point. Everywhere that can make coolers out of these single-piece walled plastics can make one that’ll hold ice for up to a week. Every brand I’ve mentioned has been able to hit at least three days of ice retention in a swampy Georgia summer. They’re all bear proof, and they’re all easily washable if you get fish guts in them. To pick based on performance is a fool’s errand, and for me to harp on that to you is even more so.So, I’m back to looks. He’s a small businessman, with an electrical company that employs only from his local IBEW. He is, understandably, loyal to the Pelican brand because he uses Pelican cases, and he likes that the coolers are also made in the U.S.A. But when the firstborn Guillory was getting his business off the ground, doing the rounds at local charity events to get the word out, I noticed he had a fat Premier South Electrical decal on top of a Yeti cooler giving drinks away for free. “What’s that all about?” I asked. “It holds ice just as long as my Pelican.” We both knew that because I’ve told him, I said—what is it really about? “I can’t have people reaching into some random-ass cooler with my decal on it.” So it is about keeping up appearances. He even said he’s buying the next all-orange release (the color of his company).It’s the case for vanity, and I’m officially closing it.Florence SullivanPhotographs by Florence Sullivan